LIV.

The carpenter Jonas Jackson, called Big Jim Crow, was contracted by the preacher known as Swampy Joe to build a new church in Strangetown.  It would be the second such freedman's church in the district, the first being Jessup Floyd's African Methodist Church.  It was to be known as the Chapel of Freedom, and the cost was put up by a parishioner's trust funded by Maw Possum and The Major.  Swampy Joe, whose Christian name was Joseph Greene, was a highly unusual preacher.  

Before Emancipation, he was a slave preacher on Drummond Downs, which was on the Mooresville Road. He had surreptitiously run an invisible church from inside a crumbling gambrel-roofed barn on the outskirts of the plantation. It was partially caved in and grown over with brush and ivy, the rafters sagging with wisteria. And in this crumbling structure he ministered his fellow brothers and sisters into the presence of the Holy Spirit. His church was vaguely of the Baptist tradition. The power of his theology was Freedom, and his brothers and sisters were the Israelites. This was a common theme among most slave churches. What made Joseph Greene's church so unusual was its Hoodoo ritualism.  

At his invisible church, Joseph Greene would throw himself into trances and speak in tongues. He'd call up Ring Shouts and dance bare-chested around the fire, babbling glossolalia and blowing goofer dust from his palm into the faces of his supplicants. He'd charm snakes with fevered hymns and snap chains with his teeth. It was a dazzling spectacle of the Holy Spirit!  It was also provocative to the slaveowning society and placed his life at great risk, but risk it he did as he travelled by night to preach and shout and dance at the various plantations. He'd baptize in the marshes of Limestone Creek where he earned the name Swampy Joe. Now that the war was over, the Chapel of Freedom would become a beacon for all the freed slaves whose Salvation was groomed in the shadow of Swampy Joe. 

Evander Pruitt accompanied Big Jim Crowe to work on the church.  It was his penance for his sins - his recent ones, anyway.  Unlike the traditional gable and steeple of Jessup Floyd's AMC, which was on Strange Street itself, Swampy Joe's church was being built with a thatched hip roof. Keen on the power of symbolism, Swampy Joe had a well dug into the groundwater, and instead of a bucket he hung a bell.  He would ring it on Sundays and his congregants would stand in line as he cast water on them drawn from the well using a gnarled stump of ash wood for an aspergillum. His eyes would lift into his head, and he would cast some benediction, then quote Leviticus or some such, and then open the double doors which revealed a room of split-log pews and a great chest-like structure which doubled as some form of altar.  A grotesque Catholic-like crucifix was hung by hemp at the back end.  

Swampy Joe's performance had tempered somewhat since Emancipation. He slackened somewhat from his Hoodoo roots.  His renowned ministry in the in the County was suddenly challenged by the appearance of another renowned minister. This was Jessup Floyd, who had come by way of a prominent family of New England freemen. He was an educated and well-spoken brother. He had organized congregations of the African Methodist Church among the Low Country Gullah of the Carolina Sea Islands. Now that the war had ended, Jessup Floyd had come to the Nickajack to bring his orthodox brand of social and spiritual enlightenment to the emancipated slaves, who were left bereft with sudden freedom and little more. 

Jessup Floyd always wore a black waistcoat to service with a clerical collar, and his salty beard and gray hair gave him an avuncular air.  In spite of this observant outfit, he had the personal touch. He recounted the possibilities of free labor in devotion to Christ.  He shared the Israelites rejoice of Freedom, and the earnest labor and study of these people to follow in the pathway of the Lord. He dazzled his congregations with photographs of himself in Faneuil Hall in Boston, and shaking hands with Frederick Douglas, and of his free children who were never sold off, and of him standing next to white men, all of them smiling. To freedman this was all quite foreign, but it proved that some form of harmony existed elsewhere when their current post-war world was fraught with violence and tumult. And so Jessup Floyd's flock increased to Swampy Joe's consternation.

But if Jessup Floyd's favorite Gospel was Mark, then Swampy Joe's was John. Whereas Jessup Floyd could recite the Aquinus and Augustine when the assault of logic required it, Swampy Joe could recite Acts and Revelations when the Holy Spirit compelled it. He did it in the fever of what he called the "Gittup." And whereas Jessup Floyd's orthodox Sunday service over the newly emancipated freemen was noted with satisfaction by the Greeks, Swampy Joe's preaching was regarded as bombastic and heathen by the same.

And so the Chapel of Freedom rose from the funky bottoms of Strangetown by the earnest labors of Big Jim Crow and his crew. For his penance, Brother Pruitt helped build the church. He saw no error in the charge. Penance was penance, and Evander Pruitt always paid for his sins - recent ones anyway. Before service, Swampy Joe would slather his hair in pomade and douse his head with water.  In the heat of summer, he would steam and bead water.  His preaching was fevered and fervent. He scooted and shouted and sweated and seethed. What he seethed at was what Lyman Resnick, editor of the Limestone Democrat, was calling the "New Condition." It was not pejorative, but an apt label for the post-war limbo of black-white labor relations. But for Swampy Joe, he proclaimed the New Condition was the freedman's chance to forge a new identity.  The New Condition was a black Israel freed.  And that black Israel meant a new brotherhood nation of freedom, free labor, free choice, free worship, and free expression. When Swampy Joe trifled with sermons preaching land reform and support for the Fifteenth Amendment, his church on Drummond Downs was firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan. On the front page of the Limestone Democrat, the arch-conservative Lyman Resnick could scarcely conceal his satisfaction.  

And so Swampy Joe paid homage to Maw Possum, who proffered him a Quark and a Promissory Note for the construction of a new church, smack dab in the middle of Strangetown. And he rode the cars to Huntsville to draw upon her check from the parishioner's trust at the State Bank on Jefferson Street, and returned to Strangetown to place this cash in the hands of Big Jim Crow, who immediately began construction of the Chapel of Freedom. And so it rose on Strange Street, across from Jessup Floyd's AMC. And the music of both churches would rise on Sunday's into the milieu of sound of Strangetown's busy streets. And so it was that the aroma of sound from both temples would compete but was deemed pleasing all the same to the Lord. 

XLII

When he tossed Jesus over three weeks ago, Brother Pruitt fell into a deep funk. In fact, he didn't know which came first, but he bet on his unfaithfulness. The boo hags had come again. He didn't even leave the tent most of the time, which was pitched behind the Whitesport Salon. He battled with terrible demons and sulked gravely. He thumbed the handle of his pistol. He was drunk on Sunday. The Darlings of Strangetown would pass by his tent in the evenings and hear him raving and kicking like the fitful sleep of a dog. His beard grew long. He'd shake open the flaps to his tent in the morning, stark naked half the time. The sun would cast harsh beams into his squinting eyes. No one paid him any mind, so he'd skulk off back into his cot besides which a rifled-through Bible sat open to 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13. Evander Pruitt loved everyone, but in these terrible hours, he did not love himself.

It was out on the endless prairie where the farms were burning, spinning coils of black into the sky that were circled by the buzzards. They had chased Old Pap's army all the way across Missouri into Kansas. These rebels had been a miserable lot. They wore rags, their pockets stuffed with ammunition and molded bread. The lucky ones had shoes. They ate the land up like locusts. Starving themselves, they robbed what little was left on any farmstead they encountered, no matter if the inhabitants were secesh or Unionist. Every man they encountered they either shot or conscripted. Evander and his troop of Jayhawker Unionists snapped and hounded at the rebel column that moved through the land like an evil menace upon the Earth. They were galled by the dead that was left dribbling in its wake, both soldiers and civilians.

Once, they had caught up with a straggling column of Johnny Rebs that were sacking a homestead near Mine Creek, Kansas. They dismounted and fanned out into a crescent overlooking the farm from a wooded ridge. They heard the shrieking of a woman and the wail of a child. There were gunshots and it went silent. They swooped in on the farm and in a sharp spasm of violence they killed every Johnny Reb. Nine of them. They scalped every one of them, and then dragged their bodies to a pig sty and threw them in for the hogs to finish. Their mules weren't worth saving so they shot them too. When Evander walked into the farmhouse, he stumbled back out and vomited. Then they brought out the woman and the child and buried them.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or the sword? As it is written: for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered...

Amen.

The mother and the child. The Madonna and the Messiah. The bottle and the rope.

As all this was tormenting his mind, he was suddenly awoken by the ringing of a bell. It was his bell, which was hung from the outside pole of his tent. He rang it on Sundays to call the wicked to Christ. Who the hell is ringing my goddam bell?

Oh! I's sorry mistuh. I thought I's supposed to summon you by the rangin of this bell here.

Brother Pruitt sat up in his bed rubbing his eyes and grasped for his spectacles. Finding these he saw in his doorway a large black man. He wore a linen work shirt and denims and a wide-brimmed straw hat. His face looked like darkened copper in the morning light.

Who the hell are you?

Oh! Sir, my's name is Jonas Jackson, but all my friends call me Big Jim Crow. I reckon you can too.

Evander sensed he was missing something, so he straightened himself somewhat and beckoned the man to enter. As he did so, Evander washed his face from an enamel basin and ignored the signs of a creeping hangover.

Well, he said. I didn't think anyone besides a bunch of street urchins would ring my bell. I'm sorry. What can I help you with, sir?

Big Jim removed is hat and seemed uncertain how to start.

Well sir, Big Jim proceeded. I've been watching you, and some of the other preachers too. I've been looking to be baptized, and I thought I'd ask you to wash me in the Holy Spirit, sir. If you'll have me, of course.

The request did not confuse Brother Pruitt, but the circumstances had. He had just been thinking about hanging himself again. He might have gone through with it this time too, he thought. He searched Big Jim's eyes for something, maybe a sign. But all he saw was just the eyes of another man. What were his demons, he wondered? Did he have boo hags too? It did not matter. In that moment, there were two men searching for Jesus in one another.

For where two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.

They spoke at length where Evander Pruitt learned of Jonas Jackson's yearning, his hunger for the Bread and Water of Life. The Saving Grace. The redemption of one man's Soul manifest in a world of sin in a universe of suffering. And when he heard all this, agreed to baptize Big Jim Crow in the Holy Spirit. And bye and bye, this had been done, and Big Jim Crow was cleansed of his Original Sin even if the country he lived in could never be cleansed of its own. And Brother Pruitt lived yet to continue serving the Lord.

Sterling "Old Pap" Price, Missouri Sesech Leader

The Missouri sesech leader Sterling “Old Pap” Price led an invasion of almost 12,000 mounted raiders through Missouri in the Autumn of ‘64 that ate the land up like locusts. Evander Pruitt and the Jayhawks hounded the rebel column into Kansas where farms burned across the prairie and soldiers and civilians alike were killed without quarter. (Chapter XLII)

XV

Jesus Christ forgives, but you never forget. That is a truth they never teach you in the Bible about your worst sins. Brother Pruitt never forgot that truth no matter how hard he drank. That was a sin too, he thought morosely. He thought about hanging himself every night, the feeling stronger on some days, less on others. By the grace of God. By the grace of God. One day at a time. God had called him to go forth into Nineveh. How could he look away from the countenance of the Lord and refuse? Besides, it kept him alive. It kept him ahead of his demons. God had a plan for him he repeated to himself.

When he was alone in his tent in the evenings, he would be visited by ghosts. All of them started in Missouri where the war had swept across the vast backcountry like a brushfire. A young St. Louis abolitionist full of piss and fire, he enrolled as a Jayhawk partisan. They fought Confederate Bushwhackers in a vicious and fluid guerilla war where the most savage depredations were perpetuated. Thousands of refugees were on the move in a countryside that was depopulated by terror. Farmsteads were torched, women were raped, boys of military-age were being shot.

 
A settlement of German immigrants was in distress. So the Jayhawks promised to defend it until they could move the corn harvest out to feed the federal army. They dug rifle pits and split log barricades and waited for the Bushwhackers to come. They came in through a steady rain. As Evander ducked low in his muddy pit he raised his rifle slowly and drew a bead on the shape of a horse and rider. The ambush was loosed. Firing exploded. He pulled the trigger and the man toppled, hit in the side. Fighting continued for two hours in a pitched firefight through driving rain where the smoke hung evenly, so they all moved in close with pistols and knives. It was bloody business.

 
When the firing petered out, Evander crept low through the brush, rifle ready looking for the first Bushwhacker he had winged. He found him behind a wild forsythia bright as the sun where the man had crawled into for cover. The rain had ceased and the rebel's wound was smirched with mud. A pool of blood collected on the earth. Along the rebel's shoulder belt hung a string of scalps. Evander saw red. Without a word he knelt down and pressed his knee into the rebel's neck. With one determined motion he had carved the man's scalp off with his Bowie knife. The man screamed and writhed. And when he had finished this, he silenced him by cutting open his throat. The earth around was soaked with blood and rain.

 
That ghost came often. Maw Possum called them boo hags. A lot of soldiers were visited by them. She prescribed all sorts of hudu remedies Evander thought pagan, but most veterans stayed with drinking. Its all they knew. Its all he knew. Beside Madame de Smet's cathouse in Strangetown grew a forsythia within sight of where he would preach, bright as the sun. And the Word of God would come to him, and he would be tortured by the uncertainty of its conscience or divine provenance.

 
"But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile, though shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die." - Leviticus 21:14

 
With all these ghosts - boo hags - he had nothing left but Jesus Christ. He surrendered his soul to Him. It was all he had left. Everything else was a phantasm of chaos denuded of any meaning, and that was worse than hell to Evander Pruitt. It was as though his soul needed some choice towards daily sanctification, or it would wither into the void and nothingness. If he were an Apostle, he'd be a Thomas.

As Evander Pruitt rested down into his cot in the tent he pitched in Strangetown's bottoms, he drank the numbing elixir. The boo hags came again. The man he scalped. He was wounded in the side like Christ, lanced by Evander's trigger. The blood from his scalp pooled. Christ's blood washes. This blood is befouling. While he felt saved today, he wondered if suddenly he were not tomorrow. He receded into a fitful sleep, and hoped he would never wake up again.

IV

Everybody was getting it down in Strangetown. It was the place to be in the days after that damned ole war. Everyone was so desperate, and here was a place where money suddenly flowed like honey. Only three years before the Yankees had pillaged the town like lunatics. Even the Greeks on the Hill were feeling the pinch. Egyptian cotton flooded the market, and Confederate bonds were in the toilet. Now the Yankees were dumping thousands into Limestone County to give freedmen and poor whites what The Major patently called “The Square Deal.” It sounded suspicious to anyone who first listened, but everyone went along with it because this was real money. It wasn’t that Confederate dreck they just printed out like it was nothing during the war. Nobody knew or asked where this money came from, but it worked, and that’s all that mattered.

Strangetown was getting crowded with all sorts of comers: freedman, veterans, cranks, immigrants, laborers. Everyone was coming to get some of that Square Deal The Major kept going on and on about. The problem was that Town Creek was a place of ill-humors. Frequent flooding left an air of miasma for which people fashioned masks. So, The Major financed a dam, which gave Brother Pruitt more than a foot of water to baptize the wicked in. Next, The Major planked in the road known today as Strange Street and built a bridge over the waters. Businesses sprouted along the banks and the main drag. The Major walked down every day from the Freedman's Bureau to look satisfied at the progress.

At one point during Reconstruction, Strangetown had no less than two cathouses, four saloons, and a Chinese laundry. There was also a theater, a brewery, three fortune tellers and two churches. That was in addition to the shacks and tenements that crowded this little clapboard skyline. And then there was Maw Possum, giant of them all, who ran Strangetown with a deck of Tarot and the luck of an obsidian stone. She called everyone in Strangetown her darlings… the Darlings of Strangetown.

II

Growing up in Limestone County and around the city of Athens you might have heard stories about Strange Street. It don’t run but a hundred yards or so across the Town Creek floodplain near downtown Athens. About the only thing its known for today is a place to drop off your cable bill. But back during Reconstruction it was known as Strangetown.

They were heady times then. Everyone was glad the war was over. The Yankees came down and brought real money. Life was coming back. There was a new promise in the air, and nowhere was that promise felt more vibrantly than in Strangetown. There was music again. It was in those years lined with shacks and cathouses, saloons and a racktrack. It was looked askance by the folks on the Hill who lived in columned mansions, and whom the folks of Strangetown called the Greeks. It was a hot bed of sin and generally disapproved of behavior, but also a wellspring of Republican votes.

Strangetown was run by three power brokers then. There was Maw Possum, a former slave and hero of the Underground Railroad before settling into Strangetown. Supposedly she ran a wide network of rackets across town. And then there was “Royal Bill” Marmaduke, who was a hero of the Army of the Tennessee and who became the Republican sheriff. All the game tables paid up to him while he kept down the Klan, who ran their own red light outfit down in Dogwood Flats. Then there was Brother Pruitt, who loved Jesus and ate and walked with the coloreds, but to whom every one paid up anyway on account of their guilty consciences. Most folks in Athens don’t think about all that went down in Strangetown, probably because its so seldom heard of. I'll see if I can't dig up more stories from this fascinating time in Limestone County, Ala.